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Do 30,000+ radical extremist Islamic militants in the Middle East really pose a threat to the rest of the world? When it first began, did Hitler’s Nazi Party pose a threat to world peace when it first began? The answer to the latter nearly took the world to its knees before Germany fell. What do both of these movements have in common?

What we have here is a clash of ideologies. Although it has been reported that only slightly over 20% of the worlds one and a half billion Muslims are sympathetic to the ISIS cause, that number alone is astronomical.

Make no mistake, what is happening in the Middle East is a Holy War with immense implications to the rest of the world. The participants, mostly Sunni Muslims, of ISIS have declared war on their fellow Shia Muslims, Jews and Christians. In a matter of months, their ranks have grown to be in excess of 30,000 and they have established their Caliphate state by occupying portions of Iraq and Syria. Already their presence in other adjacent countries is being felt. This intense fervor comes not just from a desire to acquire territory, but an ideology of forcing their Muslim religion, under Sharia law, on those they conquer and kill those that don’t comply. It appears no one that comes under the control of ISIS is immune. Their brutality is shocking— from beheadings and torchings to mass killing of innocent children and selling of ‘donor’ organs on the black market. Convert to their form of the Muslim religion or die.

This is not so different from when Hitler’s Germany took control of Austria in March 1938 and then, with help of England and France, completed the take over of Czechoslovakia by March 1939. Using the harsh limitations put on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Hitler’s pretext was Germany’s right to acquire land where German-speaking people lived (policy of lebensraum). But quickly, the takeover became more. Jews, from all parts of the German occupied territory, were rounded up and put in camps, then by the millions, worked to death or systematically exterminated in gas chambers, while the majority of German citizens either didn’t know or looked the other way at what was going on right under their noses. At the end of World War II, the world community promised this almost unimaginable brutality of ethnic cleansing would never be allowed to happen again. In the subcontinent of Africa alone, there are examples where history has proven that promise wrong on numerous occasions.

What seems different, about the participants of ISIS from Hitler’s Nazis, is their willingness to sacrifice their own lives for their ideology and their senseless brutality. A brutality, broadcast to the world community, that almost begs for reprisal. Either the ISIS terrorists feel the world community is so burned out from the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they are unwilling to make the commitment to eradicate them. Or, they want to draw the opposing countries into a third World War— the flash-points being Israel and Iran developing a nuclear weapon.

The complicating problems are immense: The American public is burned out on getting into another war that results in ‘boots-on-the ground.’ They have accepted drone attacks on Al-Qaeda leaders and targeted bombings. But the ISIS confrontation is different— the terrorists are too spread out and more forces pour into their occupied territories daily. The efforts of the limited sorties flown by US forces, the response by Lebanon in retaliation when their captured pilot was burned to death and Egypt’s response when 21 of their citizens were beheaded in a mass execution, just because they were Christians, is clearly not enough to bring a halt to this expanding threat by ISIS. The President’s representatives have made it known that the US military has planned an invasion into the ISIS controlled territory to retake Mosul in April using using Iraqi troops. So, there is hope other, less public, plans to eradicate ISIS are in the works.

The United States has been the word’s policeman since the end of World War II. President Obama campaigned and won two elections on the promise he would extricate this country from Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, even though Obama claims to be a Christian, his Muslim background has shaped his beliefs that this movement is only by a small part of those that hold onto the Muslim faith. So, he is fundamentally torn with dealing with ISAS as a band of fanatical terrorists versus the religious fanatics that they really are. Although he recognizes the threat they pose, I feel he greatly underestimates their future capabilities if not stopped soon.

As ISIS advances its agenda of domination and destabilization across the Middle East, they have already set their eyes on Rome and, ultimately, Washington, D.C. Is this just wishful thinking by a band of ‘junior varsity’ terrorists, as President Obama compared them to in an interview with New Yorker magazine, released January 20, 2014? Close observers of their advances in taking large areas of Iraq and Syria and the brutality to those they capture, would probably disagree.

History has a way of repeating itself. Hopefully, the world leaders won’t keep looking the other way, until it’s too late!

Growing up, Sunday mornings were when my mother would drag my dress shirt, cuffed pants, seersucker jacket, clip-on bow tie and one-day-a-week pair shoes out of the closet and lay them neatly at the foot of my un-made bed. It was church time; a weekly ritual for as long as I can remember. For me and my baby sister, it wasn’t really church, but Sunday school. That would come when we were older. Going to church was part of our lives. Granted, I’ve not been as disciplined as my parents, but the lessons they taught me have shaped my thinking throughout my life.

The extra time it took to dress up for church, instead of just dropping into yesterday’s jeans and a fresh t-shirt, was all part of the process of preparing for church. Not that I couldn’t have benefitted just as much in my jeans and t-shirt, but there was a certain decorum that was acceptable in those days. I thought of it as my church uniform.

Dial ahead thirty years to many of the Pentecostal and so-called Cowboy churches where the tradition of dressing up was no longer expected. Many attendees still did, but many didn’t. The argument put forward was that by relaxing the ‘dress code’ more people would go to church. And that’s what counted! The standards, that were fine for our parents, had passed.

This change struck home when my wife and I attended our church on a recent Sunday. The greeters that welcomed and directed us to a pew weren’t wearing ties. Many of the older attendees, scattered around the sanctuary, were still dressed in their Sunday best, but almost as many were dressed from dress-casual, to jeans, even one in her sweat suit, as if she had just drooped by after an early-morning jog.

It was a special Sunday, called Kirkin’ o’ th’ Tartan, when the culture of the roots of our church from Scotland was celebrated by some of the members bringing to the service tartans of their clan’s heritage. We were barely seated when the music of bagpipes filled the air. Leading the procession into the sanctuary of the choir and the minister was the North Texas Caledonian Pipes and Drums Corps, dressed in their full Scottish regalia, with their bagpipes tightly tucked under their arms. The look on their faces told it all, as they proudly carried on the traditions of their forefathers’ native country. I was struck by the irony of holding on to the traditions of the country where our church had its roots, but throwing other traditions aside just to get more people to attend. I wondered if the affect would have been the same if the bagpipe corps had turned in their kilts for jeans or a sweat suit.

There is something to be said for decorum— behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety. Tradition for tradition’s sake without meaning only stifles progress . Dress codes in church may hold back attendance, but it shows respect for the church. It also demonstrates (in this case attendance) sacrifice to take the extra time to ‘clean-up’ so to speak. Does it matter to God? Probably not! But it may matter to others that attend the service.

Dress code in church is only one example of how social norms are ‘dumbing down.’ The more free use of curse words in public, toothpicks hanging out the mouth, and chewing gum in public are the most obvious.

Chewing gum in public, especially when it is done by our President, has garnered lots of attention. Recently, the press in India was critical when Obama, who was in conversation with their Prime Minister Shri Modi, took the gum that he was chewing, out of his mouth, examined it and then popped it back in. When Obama was photographed at the somber, 70th anniversary ceremony of the D-Day landing, ‘chomping’ his gum, the French media had a field day with comments like lack of respect and shocking. The comment that said it all came in a French twitter that claimed the President’s chewing gum was an example of American class.

Collectively, these examples of changing decorum don’t demonstrate how far our society and our leadership have come in shattering old taboos and setting new norms, but possibly the first signs of the fall of the “American Empire.”

Physicians need a national organization that speaks with a united voice on issues that are corporatizing this once-noble profession. For without that representation, they become nothing more than independent contractors answering to the highest bidder, and not to their patients.

In the early 1950s, the American Medical Association’s (AMA) membership was almost 75% of the eligible physician population. Today that number hovers in the upper teens, which also includes medical student and resident members. From 1980 to 2002, the membership of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) had grown by 55.6% and, from 2002 to the present; it has grown by an additional 16%.

Although these statistics don’t exactly equate, they point out a glaring difference: While the AMA’s market share of eligible physician members continues on a long downhill slide, the ACS continues to grow its membership. Understanding this difference is important, since the AMA, even with its low market share, is still usually considered the spokesman when it comes to national issues that affect the medical profession. At some point, and with the continuing trend, that may no longer be the case. Either some other voice will take the AMA’s place, or the disparate entities that make up the body of practicing physicians will then have to feign for themselves.

With respect to its charter, the American College of Surgeons is targeted to advocate for issues that particularly affect the surgical specialties. The AMA tries to represent the needs and desires of all the disciplines that comprise its broad membership, which, all too often, puts it in a no-win situation with at least some of its constituency.

The reasons physicians join organizations generally fall into four general categories: Education, certification, representation and duty are the most notable. The first three are obvious, although they vary, depending on area of interest and locality. It is this duty to the profession that has changed this paradigm— this moral obligation that supersedes personal reward.

The American public’s support for this country’s efforts during World War II, versus the Vietnam conflict, seems to be the most analogous comparison. In the former, there was an almost 100% support, both on the battlefield and at home. During the Vietnam effort, the goals shifted from defending liberty to protesting— an attitude shift from public good to self-fulfillment.

It is the responsibility of the leadership of these two similar organizations, that claim to speak for and to the physicians they represent, to reevaluate and make adjustments when necessary to the three basics of responsibility, relevance, and representation:Responsibility to their members— just as important to the patients these physicians serve. Staying relevant to the current needs and wishes of the medical profession and their membership. Finally, representing the physicians’ best interests in those areas that impact the profession.

These basics require ongoing diligence by the leadership to the changing norms and expectations of both their physician populations and society as a whole— an understanding of the big picture. Unfortunately, that is where the entrenched leadership often fails. So caught up with their own, personal agendas and the precepts established when the climate was different, they often try to lead rather than follow.

Isn’t that the question? When should leadership lead and when should it follow the wishes of its constituency? When does the collective knowledge of those that are elected to lead out weigh the apparent wishes of the membership?

While the ACS continues to grow its membership, the drop in AMA penetration from close to 75% of eligible members in the 1950s to somewhere in the upper teens, deserves a closer look.

Although the AMA is more representative of the body of physicians as a whole, it is less representative of many specific groups that make up its membership. Thus, the major reason the ACS grows its penetration rate in the surgical sectors of the profession.

The membership drop in the AMA speaks particularly to apathy on the part of today’s physicians and lack of perceived value. Potential members feel that they can get more targeted representation through other organizations and alliances. But it is the loss of allegiance to duty that is the most critical. This social trend is not only with medical organizations, but traditional churches, many social organizations and volunteer efforts too. It is a re-prioritization away from traditional allegiances and into arrangements that create more direct benefit to the participants

Because of its diverse audience, the AMA has always had difficulty with communication. With the loss of AM News, revelations about the regulatory and political issues that are impacting the medical profession have deteriorated even further. These subjects are not routinely part of JAMA’s purview or even the specialty periodicals they publish. It’s not through the minutes of the AMA meetings. Those are usually distributed through the state organizations’ periodicals and the minutes of some of the specialty societies. If there ever was a wake-up call, it is for the AMA to prove its relevance.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) appears to be the ‘sword’ on which the AMA has chosen to make its stand. Virtually every poll conducted of physicians was and continues to be opposed to the legislation in its current form. Still, the AMA publicly stands in support of most of the mandates in the ACA.

Although no one, except maybe the authors of the original legislation, understood the full implications of the proposed law, the AMA’s almost blind support set the path for a new era for the organization— compliance. Their position, put forward by their BOT and supported by their House of Delegates, is one of compliance—evaluate ways that physicians, as providers of care, and small business employers, can maintain compliance with the proposed Employer and Individual Mandate clauses. The proposed intent was to do this without eliminating the choice of their doctors and many of their health care plans. At least, that’s what the American public was told as the plan was initially touted.

Instead of supporting changes to those aspects of the law that potentially create access and financial hardships to employers and patients (the Employer and Individual Mandate clauses), the AMA appears to look for ways to improve compliance with those mandates. Instead of saying ‘no’ to the government mandates concerning ICD 10 guidelines (which they have recently put out objections), EMR stipulations, and punitive rules concerning hospitals that treat Medicare recipients, the AMA appears to sit idly by, apparently afraid to ‘ruffle the feathers’ of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Administration that are the root causes of these intrusions into health care delivery.

We must question why the AMA membership continues to lose penetration in the physician population, while the ACS still maintains and grows theirs. Maybe, it’s because the ACS is seen as an advocacy organization with their frequent postings to their membership with the ACS NewsScope and other methods of communication, while the AMA loiters in relative silence of compliance.

This concern is not about the number of members in either organization, but about being able to protect the precepts of this noble profession and the health and wellbeing of the patients they serve.

Some might claim the AMA is too big, because it tries to represent too many divergent interests. With a member penetration of only in the upper teens, some would say it’s not big enough. The numbers may not be important, just being able to deliver the message!

Physicians desperately do need an American Medical Association, but is itthe one we have now?

When medical care transitions from private to institutional, as in a socialized medicine delivery system, depersonalization occurs when the providers change their priority from the patients under their care to the system that employs them.

The Medical Group Management Association has shown that physician productivity falls, sometimes by more than 25%, in hospital based practices versus their counterparts in the private sector. This lost productivity is a consequence of the more fragmented, less accountable care that results from these arrangements.

Most hospitals measure the productivity of the physician practices they purchase in Relative Value Units (RVUs). They are beholding to the RVU system only because that is how they get paid. This is a formula that Medicare already uses to set doctor-payment rates. RVUs are supposed to measure how much time and physical effort a doctor requires to perform different clinical endeavors.

All of this productivity translates into the loss of what should be a critical factor in the effort to offer more health care while containing costs. Hospitals aren’t buying doctors’ practices because they want to reform the delivery of medical care. They are making these purchases to gain local market share and develop monopolies.1

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) pushes hospital-based practices on the assumption that models that worked well in one community can be made to work everywhere. President Obama has touted “staff models” like the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota that employ doctors and then succeed in reducing costs by closely managing what they do. When integrated delivery networks succeed, they are rarely led by a hospital. The ACA seeks to replicate these institutions nationwide (Exchanges), even though their successes had more to do with the local traditions and superior management.1,2

The movement of physicians into an employee status, under the control of these multidisciplinary health care delivery systems, changes more than just their productivity, it potentially changes their priorities and their attitudes.3

To physicians, patients are people in need— vulnerable, sick and afraid. To health care delivery systems, these same people are customers— purchasers of health care services. When the physicians’ roles are subordinated to those that employ them, then their role as their patients’ advocates come in conflict with their goals as physicians.

Institutions measure their success by outcomes and the bottom line— physicians by the lives they have helped.

In the past, most doctors held a shared vision of what it meant to be a physician. It was the bedrock on which the medical profession was established and evolved. That goal also served as the foundation on which patients built their trust. As physicians grapple with their new roles as employees, they now have to divide their loyalty between their own patients, other patients within the system that must share those same resources and the system itself. For without awareness of these other, potentially conflicting needs, these systems fail.

This realignment is diverting physicians away from addressing the core problems that are eroding this profession’s autonomy. The beneficence and compassion of their forefathers is being strangled out by employer demands and compounding regulations that are being heaped on them— the very qualities they hoped to emulate when first choosing medicine as their life’s calling.

This is not to imply any less dedication by physicians today. It is a resetting of their priorities. Although health care, with respect to the science and the outcomes, is vastly better, there is a proportionate increase in the depersonalization of the doctor/patient relationship. Often, the physical examination and the history are secondary to the diagnostic studies. Doctors spend more time updating their electronic medical records and reviewing test results than examining their patients. They spend more time imputing into their computers and talking to consultants than to their patients.

When the encounter changes from relational to transactional, the practice of medicine is no longer a profession, but a vocation.

An article by The New York Times(NYT) writer Gardiner Harris, titled More Choose Less Hectic Schedules, highlights the sweeping changes in career choices by the emerging physician population. Telling is a reference to a survey by Merritt Hawkins, a top doctor recruitment firm, that quality of life was more important to new physicians than finances. In growing numbers, they want to work fewer hours or even part time and are willing to take salaried positions to achieve their goals.4

The Merritt Hawkins survey also reported that 51% of the positions the firm filled last year were for hospitals, almost a four-fold increase from eight years ago. Added to that number were private sector positions which included income guarantees by hospitals.3 If an increasing number of entering and practicing physicians are working or receive income from hospitals, what does this trend say about our profession’s battle against the corporate practice of medicine? There seems to be a contradiction when the organizations that represent physicians fight to block the corporate takeover of our profession, while more entering physicians are no longer interested in the ‘private practice’ models of their forefathers.

Even more important, this shift indicates “a sweeping cultural overhaul in medicine’s ethos…from being an individual to a team sport…to the point that many patients now see doctors as interchangeable.”4

The resident physician highlighted in the New York Times article, Dr. Kate Dewar, who has chosen a different career path than her primary care physician father is quoted as equating her father’s practice to the movie Groundhog Day, in which “the same boring problems recur endlessly.” She goes on to state, “I like to fix stuff and then move on.” Where in her comments does she personalize her effort to the patient instead of the malady?

Depersonalization is not just occurring in medicine. Self-serve gas stations , Home Depot, Wall Mart and McDonalds have changed the world. By cutting back on the personal services, these giant corporations create cost savings, some of which is passed on to their customers. The delivery of health care has become ‘big business’ controlled by federal regulations, hospital corporations and insurance conglomerates. As referenced in the NYT’s article, in growing numbers, we, the physicians, are letting it happen because of the “sweeping cultural overhaul in medicine’s ethos.”4

Are employed physicians less dedicated than their counterparts in the private sector? Let’s just say they are less consumed with the practice of medicine. Employed physicians are losing control of their profession by legislative fiat (Obamacare), payer mandates and the very corporations they willingly choose to join.

Dr. Kate Dewar’s response in the NYT’s article represents the thinking of many of today’s emerging physicians— focusing on the malady and not the person.

Is the growing trend of triaging through physician extenders (nurse PAs, physician’s assistants, etc.) alarming? At the very least, it is adding to the depersonalization of health care delivery.

A sad commentary on a profession that built its reputation on trust!

The soul of the medical profession lies in the hearts of those who share their knowledge and ply their skills to relieve the pain and suffering of those who are in need. Not because of what they receive for their efforts, but because of the good it accomplishes.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law on March 23, 2010. Appearing at a January 2012 symposium, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber stated, “What’s important to remember… if your state hasn’t set up an Exchange, your citizens don’t get their tax credits (that fund their costs of participation in the ACA program), but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill.”

Gruber, who advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created Romneycare and the President’s administration when it crafted the Obamacare legislation, went on the explain: “So you’re essentially saying to your citizens, you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country.”

“We just tax the insurance companies. They pass on the higher prices that offset the tax break we get. It ends up being the same thing. It’s a very clever, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,” Gruber said in remarks in 2012 that aired on the television show, “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” On another occasion, Gruber said, “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really critical for the thing (the Affordable Care Act) to pass.” At a separate event, while talking about tax credits in the Affordable Care Act, Gruber said, “American voters are too stupid to understand the difference.”

Recently, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the legal challenge to the ACA legislation that asks if the ACA should be taken literally as outlined in the King v. Burwell brief. The core question raised by the brief is it constitutional for the citizens in states without State run exchanges to be able to use tax credits for payment of their health care fees in the exchanges?

Even though the Supreme Court has ruled that the ACA is constitutional, its ruling was based on the premise that the law was not a mandate, but a tax that is under the constitutional authority of the Congress. At the same time, the high court ruled that the individual states reserved the right whether or not to establish an Exchange. If not, the law left it up to the federal authority to establish an Exchange in those states. The Supreme Court will hopefully sort out this question.

The important point raised by Jonathan Gruber’s presentation on this and evidently, at least, on four other occasions, was did the President and members of his administration willfully deceive the members of the Congress and certain influential members of the business and medical community into supporting his legislation.

Can patients keep their health plan if they want? Can they keep their doctor? The President told them they could. In the literal sense he was right. If they are willing to pay enough for their coverage, or out of their pocket! It would not necessarily be with their previous doctor or their previous insurance carrier, since some of these plans may no longer be available.

What about the health insurance companies that cannot afford to meet the criteria outlined in the ACA mandates for coverage? Are they being forced to raise their rates to noncompetitive levels, or will they drop out of the health care market all together? Where was that conversation brought into the dialogue before the vote in Congress was taken? Or when eliciting the support of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Retired Persons and the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association?

Were these the revelations, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi revealed to the press when she was quoted on Mar 09, 2010, “we have to pass the (health care) bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

The questions that should now be asked of our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. are: Do they still feel that they were correct in their support for the proposed ACA legislation, given these new revelations concerning transparency? In retrospect, did they perform their due diligence before they cast their vote in early 2010? After hearing Jonathan Gruber’s presentations, do they feel that the President and his administration knowingly deceived them?

The same questions should be asked of the leaders of two of this country’s largest medical organizations— the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP),* that have supported and continue to support most of the proposed mandates put forth the in the Affordable Care Act.

It’s time for a reality check! The independent physicians are rapidly disappearing. Replacing them are contract and salaried physicians, whose income is based on their skill sets, seniority or productivity. In all these employment models, their reimbursement does not come directly from their patients, but from some third party.

In the 1970s, doctors first agreed to accept assignment as full payment for their services. It wasn’t the onset of private health insurance and not the Medicare program, not even when these programs set out the fee schedules that the payers would reimburse their enrollees. It was when the providers of services (doctors) agreed to accept those rates as full payment. That’s the beginning of when doctors started ‘working for the man‘— an often-quoted idiom used when independent decision-making and control of one’s own self interests are subverted to superiors.

Initially, this seemed innocent enough. Patents were being reimbursed by their insurers, and were in turn, supposed to turn the money over to their doctors. Knowing that many doctors were reluctant to rely on collection agencies, a few patients kept the money. Since the practice was becoming more commonplace, in increasing numbers, doctors made arrangements with the insurer for direct reimbursement, feeling that the payers’ reduced payment was better than nothing.

Dial ahead to the advent of managed care health care systems, which linked reimbursement to improved efficiency on the part of the providers— more specifically, the capitation systems that set out total reimbursements to a fixed group of providers for a fixed group of patients over a defined time. Again, the man is setting not only the fees charged, but also the reimbursements that would be accepted.

It is estimated that by next year, about 50% of U.S. doctors will be working for a hospital or hospital-owned health system. A recent survey by the Medical Group Management Association shows a nearly 75% increase in the number of active doctors employed by hospitals or hospital systems since 2000, reflecting a trend that sharply accelerated around the time that Obamacare was enacted.*

Many factors have contributed to this trend: The growing complexities of the rapidly expanding base of medical knowledge, necessitating ready consultations across specialties. The variances in the requirements of the reimbursement models. The changes in attitudes of the emerging physician population that they would give up some of their independence, rather than fight the intrusions restricting their ability to care for patients.

Fearful of being left out of the panel selection with the payer contracts, many doctors are or have joined with other physician groups (PPOs) or have sold their practices to hospital run and owned organizations. As competition becomes more intense with health care carriers, the independent PPOs find themselves, either creating arrangements with the hospitals with respect to revenue distribution or are being taken in by these hospital systems.

With the number of health care payer options narrowing, the providers of health care services concentrate into fewer, but larger and more inclusive, entities. The physician participants within these systems increasing loose control of their decision-making, and also become distanced from the payer. Thus, the increasing control over physicians by these multidisciplinary health care delivery systems— the integrated managed care consortium Kaiser Permanente is an example that was founded in 1945.

Now introduce the Affordable Care Act’s formation of the State and Federal Exchanges. Couple that with Medicare and the expansion of the states’ Medicaid coverage. Allow the Individual Mandate and the Employer Mandate requirements of the ACA to be fully implemented.

What is the future for private heath care insurers in this scenario? Many insurers will find other markets in which to provide coverage. The remaining carriers may consolidate or continue to go it on their own. Because of the mandates set out in the ACA, with respect to what their policies must cover, the private insurers will be increasingly at a disadvantage as they compete with the coverage offered by the Exchanges that are shored up with government subsidies.

If the Employer Mandate and the Individual Mandate clauses of the ACA are fully implemented in their current form, it will totally rewrite this country’s health care payment model. Over time, employers will increasingly dump their employees into the Exchanges as the costs of the private coverage options escalate. With a shrinking patient base and without federal subsidy support to meet the coverage demands outlined in the ACA, the private carriers will not be able to compete. Those individuals who aren’t eligible for Medicaid or Medicare and are not covered by the Employer Mandate provision will be forced to pay the escalating premium costs for private coverage, turn to the Exchanges or pay the fine and go ‘uncovered’.

With the physician population moving voluntarily into a subordinate role in these multidisciplinary health care delivery systems, and the Exchanges poised to squeeze out the remaining so-called private health care payers, the end result seems obvious. Most physicians will be hired, fired and reimbursed by an entity that derives its primary revenue stream from federally funded programs. The owners of the treatment facilities may not be the federal government in the projected United States model, but with the main revenue stream coming from government funding, by default, it becomes a single payer system— just a variant of socialized medicine painted in red, white and blue. **

My physician father warned me in July 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments into law creating the Medicare program, that it was only a matter of time that time until socialized medicine would take over.

Physicians should have seen it coming: Accepting assignment, instead of collecting from their patients. Managed care arrangements under a capitation model. Agreeing with the hospital based systems to broker with the payers on their behalf. Willing to give up many of our freedoms to avoid some of the hassles in their practices. Finally, supporting legislation (ACA) that defaults to a single payer, because the law is unsustainable in its current form.

Make no mistake. Within the next decade, our once noble and independent profession will be “working for the man.”

** Socialized medicine is, by definition, a health care system in which the government owns and operates health care facilities and employs the health care professionals, thus also paying for all health care services.

This country is utopia to many disadvantaged around the world. When they take up residence in this country illegally, they become squatters that are slowly, but surely, causing irreparable harm to the American dream.

The number of people residing in the United States illegally is reported to be now well over 11 million, although some estimates range up to 30 million. With the recent deluge across our southern border, that number is increasing by the hundreds to the thousands daily. Although this country has immigration laws to address these individuals once they enter this country, many skirt the system, blending into the community, almost unnoticed. In a very real sense, they are the “squatters” of American society, enjoying the privileges and many of the benefits earned by those who reside here legally — protection from harm, emergency medical care, public education, and automatic citizenship for their children if they are born in the United States.

Traditionally, squatters are individuals that occupy property they do not own, rent, or have lawful permission to use. In many aspects, illegal aliens are this country’s squatters, using the property or resources of others without permission. While squatters of land usually occupy property of others that is not being used, these illegal inhabitants in the United States are using and consuming resources that could benefit others who have a legal right to those same resources. The incurred costs are then passed on to those legal citizens or added to the debt for future generations to resolve.

According to the National Research Council, the costs, to the American taxpayers of 11 million illegal aliens, is estimated at $346 billion annually. In 2013, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated the medical costs for uninsured individuals at $4.3 billion/year, primarily through emergency rooms and free clinics. This number doesn’t include the billions of dollars more that are being adsorbed by the hospitals for in-patient care. (1)

Reportedly, illegal immigrants, who have not paid anything into the Medicaid program, are receiving about $2 billion/annually in benefits under the Emergency Medicaid program as part of a state-federal health insurance program for the poor. Babies (called anchor) born in this country to non-documented parents are automatically granted citizenship. It is estimated that, through the numerous entitlement programs of which these infants are eligible, they generate costs to the United States at a current rate of $58 billion/year. (2)

In 2012, more than one-fourth of the prisoners in our federal institutions were illegal aliens. Another 297,000 were incarcerated in state and local prisons. The estimated costs, in a 2010 study, were $7.8 billion annually on a federal level, and $8.7 billion to the state and local governments. Data collected in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program system in 2009 also suggests that nationally the illegal alien population has a higher criminal incarceration rate at 5.4 percent compared to the overall population at 3.9 percent. In a Congressional Research Service report in 2012, if not deported upon their release, nearly one-sixth of these incarcerated illegal aliens were subsequently arrested again. (3)

Estimates of at least $35 billion of the wages earned by our illegal residents are sent back to their families in their native country and not spent here in the United States. (4) Much of their revenue is through cash transactions and does not move back into the coffers in the form of tax revenue that funds many of the programs that support the public education, highway construction, hospital funding and military protection that shore up their existence here in this country.

The ongoing costs from lost taxes, incarceration expenses, entitlement program payments, education expenditures and medical benefits incurred by illegal aliens are unsustainable. Although almost everyone agrees that effectively closing the border is the only answer, the other concern is what to do with the illegal aliens who have already become a part of the community and those who illegally pour across our border in increasing numbers.

There are two pervious events that have attempted to address immigration reform that should serve as lessons for the leadership in Washington. The first is President Ronald Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that he signed into law on November 6, 1986. In turn for granting an estimated four million illegal immigrants eligibility for legal status, the new law theoretically required employers to attest to their employees legal status and made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit illegal immigrants. Although there were rough times getting the final bill to Reagan’s desk, with bipartisan support and no prior legislative experience in addressing immigration problems, he signed the bill into law. Approximately 2.7 million immigrants took advantage of the new law. (5,6)

Most historians consider IRCA a failure. Agricultural employers shifted their efforts to finding alternative sources of foreign labor, through temporary worker programs. Many employers started hiring through subcontractors, which allayed some of their liability since the workers were not their direct employees. The enforcement requirements, such as employer sanctions for violators, were spotty or, in some cases, never materialized. (5,6)

The second event is President Obama’s Executive Order on June 15, 2012 that created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. According to some experts, the President was chiding Congress for not passing the controversial Dream Act. The program, created by the President’s mandate, allows undocumented youth, who entered this country when they were less than eighteen, to stay temporally, but does not grant them permanent legal status. They are eligible to obtain documents that will allow them to stay and work, but this only applies for a two-year period. At the end of that time, they must re-file for an extension under the program. (7) The consensus, by many in Washington, is that the President’s Executive Order, at the very least, set the stage for the recent deluge of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America that are flooding across our southern border. (8)

Robert Rector, published Heritage Foundation Web Memo #1490 on Immigration on June 6, 2007. Even though the article was created to address the concerns raised in the debate over the Senate Bill: Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348), Rector’s conclusions should give the President and members of Congress reason to pause. Using the demographics of the illegal immigrant population that were being considered for citizenship, he concluded, “the increase in taxes and fines paid by amnesty recipients may initially slightly exceed the increase in government benefits received. In the long run, however, the opposite will be true. In particular, the cost of retirement benefits for amnesty recipients is likely to be very large. Overall, the net cost to taxpayers of retirement benefits for amnesty recipients is likely to be at least $2.6 trillion.”(9)

Our leadership in Washington has reached a stalemate over the illegal immigration issue, not necessarily over what is right, versus wrong, but what is in their particular political party’s best interest— what benefits the Democrats the most in future elections and what hurts the Republications the least. These elected officials might just be pitting the future of our own children against the ‘squatters’ that have taken up residence in our country illegally. Sounds cruel, but that’s the reality!

Follow amnesty to its conclusion. Former ‘squatters’ become legal citizens. As before, they work, but now they will pay taxes and vote. Demographics point out that 49 to 61 percent of adult, illegal immigrants lack a high school diploma versus 9 percent of native-born adults. Additionally, they have twice the poverty rate. (9) How much will they rely on the state and federal entitlement programs? How likely do you think they will be to vote for those who support for expansion of their entitlement benefits?

Those answers could be just an Executive Order away — but that would be after the November election! (10)

“And six years ago, I asked you to believe, and tonight, I ask you to keep believing, not just in my ability to bring about change, but in your ability to bring about change. Because in the end, DREAMER is more than just a title, it’s a pretty good description of what it means to be an American.” *(11)

* Dreamers are young people who were brought to this country illegally as children.

In my adult life, I have witnessed four Presidents that, in one way or another, have been involved in situations that have created questions concerning their credibility and that of their administrations.

The first was Nixon and the Watergate break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters on June 12, 1972. Although some may disagree, if it were not for the dogged efforts of investigative reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, at the Washington Post, Nixon’s unlawful act might have gone undetected. The Watergate scandal drove Nixon out of office, not necessarily because of the act itself, but for the cover-up he perpetuated.

Next, was President Bill Clinton and his tryst with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Although his escapades with the young intern did irreversible damage to the reputation of the office of the President, it was his lying to Congress that moved the House of Representatives to vote to impeach him.

In March, 2003, President George W. Bush authorized a massive invasion of Iraq that came to be known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The justification for President Bush’s decision was to wipeout Iraq’s chemical weapon reserves and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Bolstered by Hussein’s history of using chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, the dictator’s lack of cooperation with United Nation’s Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspectors and his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Bush won the overwhelming support of Congress for the United States’ invasion, as well as the support of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Although no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, based on the best intelligence available, the President believed he was right calling for the invasion. Bush’s intelligence turned out to be wrong, but the President and his representatives did not intentionally mislead the American people and Congress.

On September 11, 2012, the American Ambassador to Libya and three other American citizens were attacked and massacred by Islamic militant terrorists in Benghazi. The initial report, by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was that the attacks were a spontaneous protest, triggered by an anti-Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims. Witnesses on the ground, as well as those who made up the United States military presence in the area, quickly determined that this was not a spontaneous attack triggered by the anti-Muslim video, but a planned act of terrorism. The Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, testified he personally broke the news to the President that the U.S. diplomatic post was “under attack” that night.

A recently revealed email, dated September 14, 2012, by Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Director for Strategic Communications, to the United State’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other higher ups in the Obama administration, encourages Rice to underscore that “the events in Benghazi were protests instigated by an Internet video and not a broader failure in the President’s policy on Al-Qaeda.” Ambassador Rice then testified on the Sunday morning talk shows on September 16 to that effect. Two weeks later, the President still referred to the Benghazi attack as rooted in protest to the anti-Muslim video, when clearly all those directly involved in the attack knew that the President’s assertions were not based on the facts.

There is no concrete proof that the close proximity to the upcoming November 6, Presidential election played a role in the administration’s apparently incorrect assertions in the face of conflicting evidence. However, the implications have raised suspicions that, hopefully, will be addressed by the upcoming House of Representatives’ Select Committee’s investigation. Either the President and his administration will be exonerated or, as with the Watergate scandal that ended Nixon’s tenure, Obama’s continuing influence while he is in the White House could be in question.

Increasingly, the media has exerted its own opinion into ‘reporting’ the news; at least as how they see it. During President Kennedy’s tenure, his numerous indiscretions barely caused a blip. It was as if the media took on the role of protecting his legacy, like they had for at least several of Kennedy’s flirtatious predecessors. The exposure of Nixon’s attempted cover-up may have been the media’s finest hour, as the disgraced Nixon waved his tearful farewell before boarding the ‘Air Force One’ helicopter, rather than face an almost certain impeachment. Then Clinton came along with multiple tales of infidelity long before he ascended to the Presidency. The press seemed almost numb to Clinton’s escapades, until a confidant of White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Defense Department co-worker Linda Tripp, turned over her secretly recorded tapes of telephone calls where Lewinsky shared stories of her escapades with Clinton, to Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel, who was investigating him on other matters. Only when Clinton was caught in a lie over the meaning of having sex, did he face the humiliation of impeachment.

As the first African American to rise to the office of President with an agenda of ‘Hope and Change’ creating new opportunities for the downtrodden and the oppressed, Barack Obama became the standard bearer for the liberal media. To them, his assent to power was akin to the ‘second coming’ after John Kennedy. From the start of his first campaign for the nation’s highest office, the media coddled him. Even today, in the midst of scandals over Benghazi, the continuing flood of illegals across our southern border, the IRS, the NSA and the VA, they faithfully shelter him from the ‘hard’ questions.

The appointment of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee to fully investigate the Benghazi tragedy could be Obama’s day-of-reckoning. If the committee members can put aside their bias, the truth should eventually come out.

If the conclusion of the Select Committee favors the President, the Republicans could lose big time in their fight to regain control of the Senate. Additionally, a win would surely carry on to a Democratic victory in the next Presidential election in 2016.

If the Democrats on the Select Committee try to stonewall the efforts of the committee, their party will be seen as obstructionists. If they willingly participate, and the findings go against the President and his administration, there is a reasonable chance that they will have given up any opportunity for control of the nation’s capital for the next six years.

To echo the ill-fated comment of ex-Secretary-of-State, Hillary Clinton, when she blurted out, “What difference, at this point, does it make how these men died?” before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2013. The answer is a lot! It matters that the State Department failed to act on Ambassador Stevens’ request for more security for the U. S. Diplomatic mission. It matters that when the attack began, and even when it was continuing throughout the night, no American forces were deployed, until it was too late to save those four American lives. It matters that our President and his representatives continued to call the assault on the mission a ‘random act of reprisal’ because of an anti-Muslim video, instead of a planned terrorist attack, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Not to take anything away from the importance of the tragic loss of four American lives, the Select Committee will try to determine if our President and his representatives lied to the American people. Secondarily, if the ruse over the inflammatory video was a lie, was it done to protect the President’s claims that he had Al Qaeda ‘on the run’, and thus, hoping to assure him a second term in office?

The ability of the Select Committee to get to the ‘truth’ is not only a referendum on this President, but also a test of the credibility of the media in this country that support him.

When President Nixon waved goodbye to his staff on the steps of the Marine One helicopter that would carry him off the White House lawn for the final time, it was the culmination of the Watergate scandal. A break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, orchestrated by individuals in the Nixon administration (G. Gordon Liddy, Jeb Magruder, John Mitchell, E. Howard Hunt, John Dean and James McCord), and the attempted cover-up by the President and his staff that resulted in the President’s resignation from office, rather than face almost certain impeachment. One piece of evidence that was central to the case against the President was an 181/2minute gap in a tape recording from the Oval Office, allegedly between Nixon and his Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman. According to the President’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, she made ‘a terrible mistake’ during her transcription, resulting in the gap in the recording. It wasn’t what was in the recording, but what was not, that raised the country’s suspicion that Nixon was complicit in the operation and the cover-up— a level of distrust and doubt that ultimately forced him out of office.

In 2013, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made public that it had targeted ‘selected’ political action groups applying for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012 for ‘intensive’ scrutiny, based on their names or political themes. Appearing before the Congressional House Ways and Means Committee, acting IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, testified that IRS officials inappropriately flagged progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status, in addition to tea party and conservative groups.

In a letter to Representative Sandy Levin, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, from J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA), George revealed that there were 298 political groups brought up for a closer review between May 2010 and May 2012. Of the six that had the words progress or progressive in their name, one-third were singled out for further scrutiny. He continued by pointing out “in comparison, our audit found that 100% of the tax-exempt applications with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were processed during that timeframe.”1

The impetus for this investigation appeared to have had its roots when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on January 21, 2010. It overturned most previous restrictions on political campaign spending and permitted nearly unlimited and usually anonymous spending by corporations and other groups that often influenced election outcomes.

The New York Times reported: Almost all of the biggest players among third-party groups in terms of buying television time in House and Senate races in August, have been 501 (c) organizations, and their purchases have heavily favored Republicans…2

Shortly after the New York Times article was published, Senator Max Baucus, Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee, asked the IRS to look at nonprofit organizations’ compliance with IRS rules.

During the review period, the IRS did not deny any applications of organizations with Tea Party, patriots or 9/12 in their names, but only 4 were approved. During about that same period, several dozen organizations whose name included progressive, progress, liberal or equality were approved. For many of the conservative or Tea party leaning organizations, their applications were placed in an ‘Emerging Issues’ category by the IRS, which was flagged for additional questioning and months, even years, of further delay on their final disposition.

Steven Miller, the IRS’s acting commissioner, and Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s exempt-organization division have claimed that the IRS officials began the scrutiny of these politically leaning groups after they found a surge in the number of applications for status as 501(c) ‘social welfare’ organizations. Both officials claimed there was an increase from 1,500 applications in 2010 to almost 3,500 in 2012. Several points appear to contradict their assertion: First, Lerner originally attributed the increase in reviews to low-level workers in the Cincinnati IRS office, but those workers told Congressional investigators that they “were acting on orders from Washington.” Second, the increased reviews, starting March 2010, began before any significant increase in filings by these ‘social welfare’ groups could have been detected. Finally, the actual number of 501(c) applications was less in 2010 than in 2009.3

Chairman Darrell Issa and his fellow Congressmen on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee are trying to determine exactly who gave the orders for IRS agents to target these groups. Lois Lerner, who retired from the IRS in September 2013, has ended up at the center of focus in the IRS scrutiny scandal. “(Lerner) was in a powerful position and could have been acting alone,” quotes Issa. He further explains that Congressional documents suggest that she was under political pressure to ‘orchestrate’ the targeting.

Lerner admitted, at a legal conference the previous year, that the agency improperly targeted groups to added scrutiny only because they had the words tea party or patriots in their names. In May 2013, Lerner appeared before the House committee and invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned, but not before giving an opening statement that she “broke no laws.” In a follow up to the request by the committee for further testimony, Lerner’s attorney, William Taylor said his client would testify on Capitol Hill only if compelled by a federal court, or if given immunity for her testimony. Subsequently, Lerner was issued a Congressional subpoena to reappear before the committee, but, when she failed to comply, was found to be in contempt. Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. attorney for Washington will now be asked to refer Lerner to the Justice Department for disposition of her subpoena.

In the spring of 2014, IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, promised to turn over Lerner’s emails to the committee for their investigation into her involvement. Then came the bombshell early this summer when Lerner’s attorney, revealed to the House Ways and Means Committee, that a ‘trove’ of Lerner’s emails, including those she sent to other federal agencies, were lost when her computer crashed in 2011. Lerner’s losses were not the only ones, when it was reported that six other employees in that department encountered similar problems. Although the extent of their losses was not reported, the revelation, which raises even more questions, was that one of those employees was Nicole Flax, who was chief of staff for the acting IRS commissioner at the time, and a frequent visitor to the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, The lost emails, reportedly covering from 2009 through mid-2011, closely coincided with the May 2010 to May 2012 increased IRS review period.

Tempers, on both sides, have risen to a fever pitch. The Republicans on the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee feel the IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, has not been forthcoming with Congress, because it took more than a year after the investigation had begun for the IRS to reveal the loss of Lerner’s emails. They also question Koskinen’s objectivity because it has been reported he donated nearly $100,000 to Democratic candidates and the party’s organizations over the last forty years.4

Representative Issa has made his reservations clear that someone (Lerner), with 30 years of working experience in the federal government, would not know to follow the guidelines that require emails to be printed. “We will probably never know what really happened since the IRS destroyed the hard drive,” he said.

According to Lerner in 2011, communication from the field director for the IRS headquarters’ Customer Support center, as well as, a forensic lab, confirmed that the lost data could not be recovered. “It does seem quite suspicious that these employees engaged in the controversial activities here had computer crashes, as opposed to there being a systemic crash,” said Daniel J. Metcalf, the founding director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy. “And it is awfully suspicious that the agency has been unable to reconstruct, through a back-up system, what it says it lost.”

It is clear that Lois Lerner broke the law by not making hard copies of her emails as backup. The IRS leadership also broke the law when it failed to report Ms. Lerner’s broken hard drive and lost emails. “Any agency is required to notify us when they realize they have a problem that could be destruction or disposal,” reported David S. Ferriero, head of the National Archives and Records Administration, when he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

By their own admission, the IRS employees in the Cincinnati office overstepped their authority. The consequences of their illicit activities may have changed many outcomes of the 2012 elections, all the way up the line from the city, county and state house races, to the office of the Presidency itself. Impeding the voices in the electoral process should be held to the same standards as stuffing ballot boxes, or not counting votes, which are Federal crimes.5

It’s hard to imagine that the ‘intensive’ scrutiny and the ‘lost’ emails were not part of an orchestrated effort! There is a fox somewhere in the IRS henhouse, maybe several more, which gave the go-ahead for the agents in the Cincinnati office to proceed with the selective review process. And, like Watergate, possibly a skulk in the White House that was in on it too!

The Russians are intruding into the Ukraine. The radical Sunni insurgents from Syria and Iraq are forming a caliphate. The injustices of Veterans Administration are just now being addressed. The political subterfuge by the Internal Revenue Service may never be fully known because of the apparent loss of Lois Lerner’s emails. All these problems potentially affect the path this country follows in the future. However, collectively, these untoward events don’t compare to the potential problems that are streaming across our southern border. Unchecked, this deluge of illegals is turning into an invasion, rather than a humanitarian crisis as described by our administration in Washington, DC.1

The players in this battle are the Mexican drug cartels, the gangs and even potential terrorists on one side. Trying to fend off this onslaught, on the U.S. side, are the outnumbered U.S. border patrol agents and the citizens of the border communities whose resources, agencies and health care facilities are being overrun. Surprisingly, it’s been difficult to determine Homeland Security’s position, except as a facilitator for the Obama administration. On the sidelines are the President and the Congress, who are apparently not willing or able to enforce current immigration laws or pass legislation that could resolve this critical situation. The pawns that are being used to wage this war are the children from third world countries to our south, who want nothing more than to grow up in an environment that is not corrupted by violence.

For the most part, this problem is by our own doing. Money has been allocated to build a fence between the United States and Mexico. For a myriad of excuses, from outright dereliction by our current and several recent past Presidents and our Congressional representatives, to political posturing, only 685 miles of this 1954-mile border has been completed. Much of the this so-called ‘fenced’ border consists of barbed-wire, vehicle barriers and inadequate materials that provide only minimal impediment for those who want to enter this country. Properly constructed fencing does work. Israel has proven that a security fence has decreased terrorist intrusions across the Gaza Strip by over 95 percent.

In 2007, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, published a further explanation that Friedman’s comment should be viewed as applying not merely to means-tested welfare programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, and public housing, but to the entire redistributive transfer state. “In the transfer state,” he writes, “government taxes the upper middle class and shifts some $1.5 trillion in economic resources to lower-income groups through a vast variety benefits and subsidies.”

Rector goes on to explain that the transfer state redistributes funds from those with high-skill and high-income levels to those with lower skill levels. Low-skill immigrants become natural recipients in this process. Appearing to agree is Julian Simon, the godfather of open-border advocates, who acknowledged that imposing such a burden on taxpayers was unreasonable, stating, “immigrants who would be a direct economic burden upon citizens through the public coffers should have no claim to be admitted into the nation.”

Getting to the crux of the matter, Rector points out that “elections in modern societies are, to a considerable degree, referenda on the magnitude of future income redistribution. An immigration policy which grants citizenship to vast numbers of low-skill, low-income immigrants not only creates new beneficiaries for government transfers, but new voters likely to support even greater transfers in the future.

The granting of citizenship is a transfer of political power. Access to the U.S. ballot box also provides access to the American taxpayer’s bank account. This is particularly problematic with regard to low-skill immigrants. Within an active redistributionist state, as Friedman understood, unlimited immigration can threaten limited government.”2

Looking at the pictures of the thousands of unaccompanied minors crowded into temporary shelters until their fate can be determined, I am reminded of the very effective ads put out by the ASPCA depicting abandoned animals whose only hope is being adopted by a loving owner. The desperate situation and gut wrenching stories of these displaced children tug at our heartstrings. Looking for new opportunities and unrestrained freedoms, brave souls, not unlike these children, built this country. So why the concerns over the virtual flood of new individuals who want those same freedoms and opportunities? The simple answer centers around affordability and available resources. This country has finally come to realize that we can no longer be the world’s policeman. Now, the social issue that is dividing this nation is this country’s continuing role as a safe haven.

The consensus opinion from Washington feel the nidus for this huge influx arose when President Obama issued an executive order on June 15, 2012, creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.3 There are those who feel he was chiding Congress for not passing the controversial DREAM Act.

Apparently, by the time the news of President Obama’s DACA program filtered down to South America, the message took a different twist. Instead of those who were already in this country, Obama’s mandate appeared imply that once minors were able to gain entry to this country by any means available, it was likely that they would be allowed to remain for some indeterminate time. Until the recent uproar, it seems the administration made no or very little attempt to clarify this misunderstanding. Since many of these minors arrive with no papers, it will be up to the immigration courts to determine their eligibility. Additionally, while they are waiting for their court date, they are being placed with relatives, at the government’s expense. It is estimated that between 75-95% of these children fail to show up for their court date and disappear into the existing Hispanic community.

Not everyone agrees with the explanation put out the Obama administration!

“This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a predictable, orchestrated and contrived assault on the compassionate side of Americans by her political leaders that knowingly puts minor illegal alien children at risk for purely political purposes,” is a quote in a press release by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers. Representatives of this same organization went on to claim, “certainly, we are not gullible enough to believe that thousands of unaccompanied minor Central American children came to America without the encouragement, aid and assistance of the United States government.”

Although the effects of the onslaught of unaccompanied minors are rippling across the country, two states in particular are shouldering the brunt of the exodus— Texas and Arizona. On March 7, 2014, Texas Governor Rick Perry said, “We either have an incredibly inept administration, or they’re in on it, somehow or another. I hate to be conspiratorial, but how do you move that many people from Central America across Mexico and then into the United States without they’re being a fairly coordinated effort?” He went on to add that his state has already used $500 million of Texas taxpayers’ dollars to assist with the influx of illegal immigrants.

Controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, already a high-profile critic of the current federal immigration policy, said, “I got my own theory… I think the White House sometimes is incompetent, but I can’t imagine them doing this (transporting many of the unaccompanied minors from Texas to Arizona) without realizing that there was going to be controversy.” He went on to criticize the way the media and some of our elected representatives have been given only limited access to the refugee camps that are springing up to house the children. “Why are they hiding these kids from the media? … Well, I think I have a theory here. I don’t think they’re all young kids. I would bet there are 16-, 17-year-olds. How do we know they’re not members of a gang coming across?”

“It’s time for the U.S. to get serious about immigration,” quoted Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers. “We can start by taking away their incentives to be here. All benefits: medical, food stamps, public housing, education, everything… Our government is encouraging foreign nationals to come into our country illegally and stay.”

Recalling his recent experience standing on the banks of the Rio Grande River and witnessing small pontoon boats ferrying load after load of illegals across to the U.S. side of the border, independent filmmaker, Dennis Michael Lynch said, “I just watched our country and the future of our own children officially fall off the cliff, and I don’t know what to do…”

Maybe, the answer to Lynch’s plea of frustration was uttered 44 years ago. Struggling to maintain his composure in the cramped Lunar Module, Apollo 13 Commander James Lovell put out a call for help to the Houston Space Command Center after an explosion crippled his spacecraft. Although his message, was brief and to the point, it reflected the dire circumstances the Commander and his crew faced if they had any hope of coming back alive. Lovell’s message of controlled desperation endures: “Houston, we have had a problem.”

We can only hope our President and the members of Congress are listening!

References:

A humanitarian crisis is defined as a singular event or a series of events that are threatening in terms of health, safety or well being of a community or large group of people. Then doesn’t this same definition also apply to the citizens and support systems (law enforcement, health care facilities, welfare agencies, schools, etc.) in those communities where this flood of illegals is occurring? Also shouldn’t the elected officials of these communities have a say in the disposition of these individuals who have entered our country illegally?

Rector, Robert, Look to Milton: Open Borders and the Welfare State, The Heritage Foundation, June 21, 2007.

To be eligible for DACA, the individuals had to be born on or after June 16, 1981, have come to the U.S. before their sixteenth birthday, lived continuously in the U.S. since June 15, 2007 and been present in the U.S. on June 15, 2012 and on every day since August 15, 2012. Those that qualify are eligible to file for a work authorization permit, obtain a social security number or tax ID number and are protected from deportation for two years. There is the stipulation that the status has to be renewed every two years.